I Don’t Need Your Attitude

Belief Constraint in Policy Disagreement Sources of Animosity

Tadeas Cely

Sources of Political Animosity

  • Policy Disagreement: Diverging Views on Policies

  • Ideology: It’s more than just disagreement on many issues

  • You never have complete information about someone else’s beliefs

  • Belief Constraint: The ability to predict the beliefs of others changes significantly

  • Disagreement on observed and assumed beliefs

  • Ideological and Non-Ideological Disagreement

Conceptualization

Constraint High Low
Ideologue Less Aligned Less Opinionated
Political issue 1 Liberal Liberal Liberal
Political issue 2 Liberal Liberal No attitude
Political issue 3 Liberal Conservative Liberal
Political issue 4 Liberal Conservative Liberal
Political issue 5 Liberal Liberal No attitude
Constrained (N) 5 (of 5) 3 (of 5) 3 (of 5)

Conceptualization

Conversian-Conversian

Profile A Profile B
Liberal Conservative
Conservative Liberal
Liberal Conservative
Conservative Liberal

Downsian-Downsian

Profile A Profile B
Liberal Conservative
Liberal Conservative
Liberal Conservative
Liberal Conservative

Conceptualization

Conversian-Conversian

Profile A Profile B
Liberal Conservative
Conservative Liberal
Liberal Conservative
Conservative Liberal

Similar-minded

Profile A Profile B
Conservative Conservative
Conservative Conservative
Conservative Conservative
Conservative Conservative

Downsian-Downsian

Profile A Profile B
Liberal Conservative
Liberal Conservative
Liberal Conservative
Liberal Conservative

Disinterested

Profile A Profile B
Liberal No Attitude
Liberal No Attitude
Liberal No Attitude
Liberal No Attitude

Conceptualization

Left-hand side types of disagreement remain unexplored

Belief structures of moderates

Method

Method

Description: Distributions

Figure 1a: Ambivalence Distribution

Figure 1b: Belief Alignment Distribution

Description: Covariates

Figure 2: Correlates of Respondent’s Opinionatedness and Belief Alignment

Description: Covariates

Figure 2: Correlates of Respondent’s Opinionatedness and Belief Alignment

Description: Covariates

Figure 2: Correlates of Respondent’s Opinionatedness and Belief Alignment

Description: Covariates

Figure 2: Correlates of Respondent’s Opinionatedness and Belief Alignment

Centrists / Disinterested

Figure 3: Animosity Toward Disinterested

Prediction when policy disagreement == 0

Fully opinionated vignette

Respondent Ambivalent: -4.4 per ambivalent attitude

Centrists / Disinterested

Figure 3: Animosity Toward Disinterested

Prediction when policy disagreement == 0

Fully opinionated vignette

3/8 ambivalent vignette

  • Vignette ambivalence: -6.7 per ambivalent attitude

  • Actual disagreement: - 9.2 per policy divergence

  • Centrists do not like Centrists

Conversians and Downsians

Figure 4: Policy Disagreement for Conversians and Downsians

Full alignment (Downsians)

Conversians and Downsians

Figure 4: Policy Disagreement for Conversians and Downsians

Full alignment (Downsians)

Full disconnection (Conversians)

  • apathy between Conversians, unless they disagree a lot

  • dislike of all but a small in-group for Downsians

Disagreement Across Issues

Figure 5: Animosity Due to Disagreement on Individual Policies

  • Abortion, Guns, Immigration

  • Sexual Harassment, Racial Gap in Homeownership

  • Attentiveness to issues

Implications

  • Belief structures matter for polarization

  • Belief alignment exacerbates animosity

  • Centrism and indecisiveness are often punished

Next steps

Mechanism (constraint, predictions and assumed disagreement)

  • validation with additional experiment
  • checking that this measures belief constraint
  • checking the proposed mechanism